Siacoin (The Long Term Hold)

On a fundamental level, Sia takes cloud storage out of the hands of monolithic providers and puts it back into the hands of individuals. This offers users a peer-to-peer storage ecosystem that allows anyone to rent out or take advantage of spare hard drive space.

All services on the network are paid in Siacoin, and all transactions in the Sia ecosystem are secured through filing contracts and storage proofs. You never have to worry about an attack on servers, because no outside company or third-party can access or control your files, unlike traditional cloud storage providers. Essentially, you’re flipping the script on iCloud, making it decentralized and in the end more affordable compared to the older systems.

This time I won’t put down a price prediction because when I do that, I tend to get people who disagree and act like I was giving them the inside scoop. I’M NOT. I’m here to discuss what I think a company can do in the future to hopefully add value to your crypto-portfolio. Anyway, Siacoin is one of the many companies who’s biggest seller is the fact that it is a blockchain based company. Like with all the companies who try to sell blockchain as a save all answer to all the current problems, Sia aims to compete with Amazon, Google, Apple etc. This is good! The Sia company has goals that put it in line with actually being a competitive company and put value to the holders of Siacoin (or investors). Thinking of a similar company with the same goal of being a competitor, Ripple wants to be the forefront of money transferring (basically). Looking at Siacoin they have a clear objective of wanting to be your go-to for online storage and make sure your information is NEVER compromised. Sia distributes and stores redundant file segments on nodes across the globe, eliminating any single point of failure and ensuring uptime that rivals traditional cloud storage providers.

“We believe that neither individuals nor institutions should be beholden to large corporations. Sia was created to promote and safeguard users’ freedoms. It’s our attempt to bring decentralized storage built on blockchain technology to the mainstream without sacrificing price or performance.”

Sia’s platform consists of both providers (hosts) and clients (users). Through the platform, users commission storage space from hosts, and the hosts are compensated for their services in Siacoin. The ecosystem will provide flexible storage options and will be largely free-market driven. Providers can set their own prices, advertise their level of reliability, and set standards for penalties should problems arise in storage or files be lost. Additionally, they can choose to deny a client storage if they’re uncomfortable with the nature of that client’s data (e.g. sensitive, illegal, or ethically questionable materials).

Clients also have a series of protections in place to safeguard their own interests. They have the option to split copies of their data between multiple providers to ensure file security and retrievability. For instance, if a provider were to lose a client’s file or simply refused to release it, the client could retrieve his/her files from another provider’s storage. Both parties can also agree upon contractual penalties that a provider will incur if s/he doesn’t provide proof of storage or withholds a client’s data. Clients have the option to reward providers with uptime incentives on top of the additional storage fees, as well. With these payments, clients incentivize providers for being more attentive to their needs, including faster document uploads, enhanced upkeep to process requests, etc.

Looking at the picture above we can definitely see that the costs are EXTREMELY cheap compared to the top companies listed. At $2 for storage and $1 for bandwidth, how can you go wrong with trying this product out? No way in hell will your information ever be stolen, shared without your permission, or lost forever. That’s a quality product at a great price, and ignoring the price of the coin itself, you can definitely see the competitive advantage that Sia has in this industry – if only they were selling stock I feel like a lot of people would be lining up at the IPO trying to get a piece of the action.

If you now blockchain, and know it well you would know how the price of this coin could increase. First of all, it has a use case that people will one day see and begin to join the Sia network. The nodes are what keep the network running (in a decentralized manner of course) and for the nodes putting in computing power (and electricity costs) they get compensation in the form of Siacoin. Obvious right? But it seems that people forget the main fundamentals of how blockchain works. The miners out there keeping the network alive get paid in cryptocurrency and thus put more coins in the market, BUT the use of the coin in the process of buying storage keeps the prices stable and as more people join the Sia network (as a customer) they help keep the supply and demand balance well enough to drive up the price. That concept is supposed to work for all blockchain companies, but people like to get caught up in the hype and think that a certain coin is going to KILL the old system, instead of thinking of it as a company who has to compete and drive down prices to get customers.

Siacoin is a buy and hold coin in my opinion. At the price of $0.020240 and moving, it seems to be a cheap price for a company who aims to be your trusted online storage. All that needs to happen is time to pass and the team at Sia to keep pushing its goals and become a global competitor in digital storage. As more people jump into the network to help it grow, and more customers start to use the product provided, a price far above the current price is definitely possible! As for the price and when? I could not tell you obviously, but based on the road map provided by Siacoin – be on the look out for big moves to be made in the next two years!

Remember that this is a case situation and no guarantee can be made on the outcome of your investment based on this knowledge. Article written and interpretted by Cole Horton, and influenced by Colin Harperof Coin Central.